1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to emergency response management systems, and in particular to an improved data collection and distribution methodology that enables timely responses to rapidly developing and changing environmental conditions.
2. Description of the Related Art
During emergency conditions affecting a particular geo-political area, it is important that a command and control center, referred to herein as an Emergency Management Center (EMC), receive timely, accurate and comprehensive field assessment information to ensure that available remedial measures and resources are efficiently allocated in a timely and adaptive manner. Such emergency conditions include the aftermath resulting from natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes or famine, or artificially created disasters resulting from chemical or bio-agent releases, fires, and explosions. The scope of the damage caused by such disasters may be geographically widespread, affecting vast numbers of people and resulting in extensive damage to infrastructure. In the time period immediately following a disaster, an EMC may provide critical assistance in coordinating local civic resources such as police and fire stations, ambulatory services, hospitals, and the like, which may otherwise lack sufficient resources and/or reliable information to enable them to respond efficiently to such geographically dispersed emergency conditions. In addition to coordinating local relief efforts, an EMC also facilitates the allocation of supplemental outside resources that are otherwise subject to misallocation over a widespread area.
An EMC collects field surveillance data from a variety of sources and utilizes this data to render centralized damage assessments required to effectively manage local and outside resource allocation. When disaster conditions are geographically widespread, such as occurs in the aftermath of a hurricane or earthquake, additional, temporary EMCs may be strategically established throughout the affected region resulting in a significant additional level of complexity in establishing the communications and data transfers necessary to effectively coordinate relief efforts. Such conditionally deployed EMCs must quickly establish communications with permanent EMCs operated by local, state and federal agencies tasked to address such disasters.
An exemplary centralized management center is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,574,561, entitled “EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM,” and co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/409,305, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. The foregoing references describe a system and method for managing the aftermath of a geographically dispersed disaster condition wherein one or more EMCs are established to control multiple, portable field information collection devices utilized by field inspectors to collect damage assessment information. Specifically, the EMCs electronically transmit selected survey forms directing each of the inspectors to collect particular categories of information at specified locations. As each of the individual field inspectors collects and transmits the data back to the EMCs, the data is parsed and combined with maps of the affected geographical region. In this manner, rather than leaving information gathering decisions to the autonomous discretion of the individual inspectors, emergency managers are able to direct inspectors to locations where information is required and to define the type of information to be collected.
Although the foregoing system and method are effective for dynamically assessing field conditions over a specified geographic area in an efficient, centralized manner, there remains a need for providing centralized emergency response deployment and coordination. Conventional computerized emergency management systems utilize technicians to configure the system by selecting and cooperatively deploying several otherwise mutually independent database information categories and programs such as location/map data and emergency response resources such as hospitals and transportation infrastructure. Setting up a centralized emergency assessment response effort is further complicated by situations in which an emergency event, such as a hurricane, is regional in nature encompassing several geo-political subdivisions, each having their own is localized emergency response systems.
It can therefore be appreciated that a need exists for an improved system and method for providing centralized field assessment coordination and deployment in response to an emergency event. The present invention addresses such a need.